Wayward
by enchantedsleeper
Summary: Kaoru never envisioned having competition. But whilst in town with Kenshin, Kaoru overhears some talk about her dear rurouni. Talk which leaves Kaoru quite worried. Now she has to get to Kenshin first – but how? KxK


**Wayward**

**Summary: **Kaoru never envisioned having competition. The situation between her and Kenshin is complicated enough as it is. But whilst in town with Kenshin, Kaoru overhears some women talking about her dear rurouni. Talk which leaves Kaoru quite worried. Now she has to get to Kenshin first – but how? KxK

You know they say that when someone is talking about you, you sneeze?

Well, that's how it all began.

"Achoo!" Kenshin sneezed, turning away from the laundry just in time to stop from sneezing all over the clothes. Kaoru looked up from where she had been practicing her katas at the same time as not-so-discreetly watching Kenshin doing the laundry. She couldn't resist the opportunity.

Before Kenshin could even get back to doing the laundry, he sneezed again. And again. Kaoru's eyes narrowed and she straightened up. Keeping her eyes on the oblivious rurouni, Kaoru walked slowly across the yard to where Kenshin was washing clothes. He didn't look up as she approached, but then he didn't need to; he knew full well that she was there.

"Ohayo Kaoru-do … achoo!" Kenshin broke off mid-greeting as he sneezed, and then suddenly felt a hand close around his ponytail. Startled, he looked up and met a worried-looking Kaoru's eyes as she raised her other hand to feel his forehead.

"Kenshin, tell me truthfully. Are you all right?" Kaoru asked, giving him her most beseeching look for good measure. Now Kenshin couldn't run off, and surely he couldn't resist the look she was giving him. If he was sick, he would have to admit it.

Kenshin sweatdropped at the tone of Kaoru's voice and the look on her face. He would have said that she was making too big a deal out of nothing, except that she had good reason to be concerned. After all, he never would have admitted it if he _had_ been ill. Still, on this occasion he wasn't. "Sessha is fine, Kaoru-dono," he assured her brightly.

He felt her grip on his ponytail tighten a little, as her face took on a pained expression. "Kenshin! Tell me _the truth_!" Kaoru insisted.

"Oro! Sessha is telling the truth, Kaoru-dono!" a now swirly-eyed Kenshin told her.

"Then why were you sneezing just now?"

"Sessha does not know," Kenshin told her honestly. "Perhaps it is the pollen? Sessha is fine now - see?"

Reluctantly, Kaoru let go of his ponytail, staring into his eyes as if she would read there an answer to the contrary. But it was useless, since Kenshin was an expert at hiding what he was feeling and thinking. Still, _this_ time he did seem to be telling the truth. "Well…. alright…." she said, now feeling a little stupid from having reacted in that way. Kenshin gave her a bright and sunny smile. "It is fine, Kaoru-dono," he told her, already having picked up on her embarrassment. He gathered up the clean clothes, and went to hang them up to dry, leaving Kaoru standing there with a silly half-smile on her face.

Once the clothes were hanging up, Kaoru came to Kenshin with a list of food that they needed from the marketplace. She had only just handed it to Kenshin, when the mysterious sneezing illness struck again. Kenshin sneezed three times in quick succession under Kaoru's concerned gaze. If he wasn't sick, she wondered, what was the problem?

"I'm going to go with you," Kaoru announced as Kenshin straightened up, a little red-nosed and red-faced as well.

"Are you sure, Kaoru-dono? Sessha will be able to carry the food on his own, surely enough," said Kenshin.

"I'm sure," Kaoru told him firmly. "Anyway, I need a new ribbon for my hair, so I might as well come along and choose one."

Kenshin couldn't argue with that, and so they walked to the marketplace together. Kenshin only sneezed once along the way, yet strangely enough, there wasn't a flower or a sakura tree in sight. Kenshin cringed slightly under Kaoru's watchful eyes. It was bad enough that he didn't know what was causing all this sneezing, but now he was causing Kaoru-dono to worry about him. He hoped she would still trust him, and believe him when he said he wasn't sick.

Kaoru browsed through the brightly-coloured ribbons, wishing that she could buy them all and yet not wanting to squander the hard-earned money that they badly needed for the dojo. Still, it was so hard. Should she buy the yellow, or the indigo, or this one, a beautiful shade of aqua…?

Suddenly, the voices of three gossiping women caught her attention. She didn't know what it was that had made her suddenly prick her ears up, but then she heard one of them say,

"Yes, that's right, at the Kamiya dojo."

Kaoru froze and was about to wheel around, when she decided that it was better that she listen with her back to them, in case they recognised her and stopped talking. She eavesdropped intently, her hand resting on one silk ribbon, her purchases forgotten.

"The one with the long red hair?" questioned one of the women.

"Mmm. A samurai, they say. Dead handy with a sword," confirmed the first woman.

_Kenshin!_ thought Kaoru. Or at least, it sounded like him. Were there any other redheaded swordsmen around town?

"Dab hand at the housework, too, they say," continued the first woman. "Rumour goes round he's been seen doing," she dropped her voice to a whisper, "_laundry!_"

"_Laundry_?" echoed the second woman incredulously.

"Mmm hmm."

Yup, definitely Kenshin. In confirmation of her suspicions, a loud sneeze was suddenly heard from the next stall, where Kenshin was buying tofu. So _that's_ why he'd been sneezing this afternoon! Kaoru's eyes widened. How long had those women been gossiping about her poor rurouni?

…. Wait; scrub out the 'her' from that sentence. _He's not mine,_ Kaoru told herself.

The women were moving away from where they'd briefly stopped to admire the ribbons. Kaoru watched them out of the corner of her eye, and when they were a decent distance away, she began following them. They moved slowly enough, and it was easy for her to follow without being conspicuous. With her eyes Kaoru pretended to browse the market stalls, but really, she was listening with all her might.

"I bet that's not all he's a dab hand at," said the third woman slyly and with considerable innuendo, continuing on from the comment about laundry. The three women burst into giggles, as Kaoru turned bright red, mortified. How _dare_ they say such things about Kenshin!

"Kaoru-dono, are you all right?" Kenshin's gentle query reached Kaoru's ears and she turned, blushing even more if it was possible, and praying to Kami that Kenshin hadn't heard what those women were saying, nor seen her eavesdropping. She turned to look at Kenshin, and kept looking, trying to see Kenshin from the perspective of another woman. Of course, she thought he was the most wonderful person in the world, in looks and personality, but it had never occurred to her that other women might also have their eyes on him. But of course, it was very possible. After all, he was, technically, single.

"Kaoru…. dono…?" Kenshin asked tentatively. Kaoru wasn't responding, but only staring at Kenshin. This was nothing new; she'd been doing so for most of the day, but this time, she wasn't watching him, more like…. daydreaming.

Kenshin shook his head vigorously to erase the thoughts of what she could possibly be daydreaming about. He reached out a hand to check _her_ for a fever. After all, she spent so much time worrying about him that she rarely spared a thought for herself. **((A.N. Kenshin you hypocrite! You hypocrite!))**

Kaoru snapped out of her thoughts as she felt Kenshin's hand rest lightly on her forehead, resisting the temptation to close her eyes and enjoy the moment. Instead, she grabbed hold of his wrist rather too tightly.

"Oro!" Kenshin yelped.

"Come on Kenshin, we're going home now," Kaoru said firmly, beginning to march back to the dojo with Kenshin in tow.

"Ororororo…."

After dinner that evening, Kaoru sat in the bath that Kenshin had prepared for her, the now-cold water doing nothing to cool the fiery anger that was burning inside her. She couldn't stand it! The thought of just one woman looking at her Kenshin in _that_ way was enough to make her want to strangle the unfortunate person. And yet, why shouldn't women look at Kenshin in that way? After all, there was nothing tying him to any other woman, not even her… Just because he rented a room at her dojo and had saved her life…. Just because she happened to have strong feelings for him and liked to think she was closer to him than most…. Obviously didn't make much difference in the grand scheme of things, since she and Kenshin weren't 'together' in any way.

Oh how she wished they were. But she had no way of knowing whether Kenshin felt even remotely similar about her to the way she did about him. He called her 'Miss' Kaoru, after all. Then again, he called every woman 'Miss'. And yet, there was such a large age gap between them. Anyway, Kenshin could have his pick of all the pretty women in town, probably in the whole _country_ for that matter. Why would he want to pick her?

But still Kaoru couldn't set aside the way she felt about him. The moments they shared together. The thought of Kenshin being with another woman was too much to bear.

And so as Kaoru stepped out of the bath and reached for a towel to dry herself with, her mind was made up. Somehow, she had to make Kenshin hers.

But how?


End file.
